


L'Chaim

by sebastian2017



Series: Jewish Fics [5]
Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Biblical References, Canon Disabled Character, Canon Jewish Character, Character Study, Crisis of Faith, LGBTQ Jewish Character(s), M/M, Mostly Canon Compliant, Queer Character, Self-Acceptance, Young Erik, allusions to a future Genosha, and he and charles are the cutest interfaith couple around, briefly features erik/omc, he loves being jewish, psa erik is so proud to be jewish yall, up until the end basicallly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2019-01-20 05:10:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12425694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sebastian2017/pseuds/sebastian2017
Summary: Cheers to Erik's life and faith as a Jew.To the strength he finds in the figures he identifies with, the belief and disbelief down the road, and to the peace he finally finds in Charles.----"It’s a bit lofty and self centered to picture himself as a sort of Moses for mutant kind, but Erik’s always been cocky as can be. Wanting to compare himself to the grandest figure of his faith? That’s right up Erik’s alley."





	L'Chaim

**Author's Note:**

> cw: mentions/descriptions of the Shoah, the setting of the first two sections is Nazi Germany and its ghettos and concentration camps, death, use of 'queer' (as both a slur and as a personal identifier), imprisonment, alcohol/drinking  
> let me know if anyone needs anything else added!
> 
> there's a spattering of Jewish vocab throughout this, so it might be handy to have a google tab open :)

**_A Chosen People_ **  
  


As a young boy, Erik certainly takes being Jewish for granted. He's four or five and he only has a vague understanding of the notion that there are other things people can be. That not everyone makes challah with their mothers every Friday. Not everyone counts down the days until the High Holidays in anticipation of the many sweet foods the children gorge on. Not everyone grows up speaking German in school, but Yiddish at home. Not everyone grows up doing the slew of other things that define Erik’s childhood, but Erik can only just barely grasp the notions. All his friends are Jewish just like him and Erik has never had to think twice about it. Of course, even that young he knows that the ones who grew up different are not good. They’re the ones who the adults mumble about nervously in the corner of rooms, when they think the kids aren’t paying attention. Erik doesn’t really understand most of it, but he figures it can’t be very good if it’s what’s always making his parents look so worried. But he’s little, so for the most part, he just ignores it. 

 

When he’s only a bit older and his family is forced to move into a cramped, dirty ghetto in Warsaw, Erik still doesn’t understand most of it. When he tries to ask his parents, they just tell him not to worry about it because he’s too young. That is if they even answer him at all. These days, most everyone goes around stressed, hungry, or tired; or most often, all three at once. As such, there’s many times Erik’s just waved away without an answer. Erik only grows more frustrated the longer it goes by that he doesn’t really understand what’s going on. He winds up going to his older sister, because Ruth is old enough to know the world a bit better, but surely she’s still young enough to understand the frustration of being left in the dark. 

 

Erik corners her one day while their parents are out getting their rations. 

 

“Ruth,” he starts, “I’m tired of not knowing what’s going to happen. Won’t you tell me?” 

 

“Erik…” Ruth sighs and pulls her brother towards her to hug him. “You’re too little to worry about those things. Leave it to the grown ups.” 

 

“No! That’s what they always say. I’m almost ten, Ruthie! I’m old enough,” he complains. 

 

Ruth looks tired as she slides down to wall to sit on the floor. She pulls Erik onto her lap and strokes his hair, like she were his mother and not his just fourteen year old sister. “You know what they say when we go to shul, Erik? About us being God’s chosen people?” 

 

Erik nods. “Uh huh. And that we have a promised land, but we don’t live there right now.” 

 

“Exactly. But that all means that we’re going to be okay. Nazis or no Nazis, our people are survivors. You’re a survivor, Erik,” Ruth says firmly. She pats his chest, just above his heart. “So we’re going to be okay.” 

 

“You promise?” Erik looks up to her, trying to look braver than he feels. 

 

“Swear it on my life, little brother,” Ruth says. “In fact, yesterday I was talking to someone who’d gotten a postcard from his cousin who went away on one of those trains. He says the work is hard, but there’s food and water and the families stay together. So maybe things will get better sooner rather than later.” 

 

“All right. I believe you, Ruthie.” Erik hugs her gratefully. Ruth is older and smarter. Surely, if she says things are going to be fine, then they will be. He has no reason not to trust her. She’s never lied to him or let him down. Besides, just like she said, they’re chosen people and he’s never had a reason to doubt that. 

 

A few months later, when she dies of hunger and illness, he stops believing her. 

  
  
  
  


**_Isaac_ **

 

He and his parents get rounded up onto one of those trains some time after Ruth dies. Erik’s not entirely sure how long after. Time seems to bleed together these days. Logically, he knows it’s not too long after. He’d been just past ten when she dies and now he’s just turned eleven, but it feels like a lifetime. He’s pretty sure they’ve been in this ghetto forever. 

 

Just like he’s pretty sure that there isn’t an ounce of truth in what his sister had told him about being okay because they were God’s chosen people. If they really were the chosen people, his sister wouldn’t be dead and they wouldn’t be hungry prisoners in fenced up blocks of Warsaw. Certainly, right now, the train Erik and his parents have been squeezed into feels more like it’s taking them back to Egypt than any promised land. Erik’s never had reason to question what he’s been taught, but now, he really can’t see how anyone could believe it. He doesn’t say it out loud, though. His mother doesn’t need that extra bit of hurt in life. None of them need any e xtra bit of hurt. Things can’t get any worse than they are now. 

 

 

\------

 

Things do get worse. Of courses they get worse. Erik thinks he was foolish for ever thinking they couldn’t be worse. Of all the outcomes he considered, his mother dead on the floor a few steps from him was never one of them. In a way, he doesn’t even hurt. He just feels too numb to hurt. There’s a gaping hole in his heart, but there’s too much going on too fast to even know how to feel it. When Herr Doktor Schmidt leaves the room, he squeezes Erik’s shoulder and Erik wants to crawl out of his skin. It’s the first time he understands why he’d so often been told that he’s too young to get told about what’s going on around him. Because it’s easier to be afraid of monsters under the bed than the real life ones. 

 

Maybe he should be screaming. Or fighting. Or feeling anything at all. But right now, he’s just standing, numb and hardly aware of the tears down his face. The coin feels like it’s burning a hole into the palm of his hand, but Erik can’t let go of it. He thinks he should never let go of it. When he gets out of this place….  _ If  _ he gets out of this place, he’ll carry it with him to remind himself that there is no such thing as a chosen people. That’s what his mother taught him and his mother is… Erik forces himself to turn around. The office is empty, save for himself and the corpses on the ground. There’s a pair of Nazi soldiers whose helmets are misshapen, caved in around their skulls. Erik is distantly aware that he must have done that. He feels nothing. 

 

Between them… Between them is his mother’s body. Erik’s knees buckle under him and he lets himself fall to his knees by her. His left hand is still clenched in a fist around Schmidt’s coin, but his right reaches out to touch her hand. He immediately regrets it. She feels stiff and… dead. He knows she’s gone, of course, but he didn’t expect her hand to feel so wrong. When Ruth died, it had looked like she was sleeping. His mother does not look like she’s sleeping. Somehow, Erik still feels nothing. There’s pain and anger and grief, but it’s muted. Like he’s observing in someone else and not truly feeling it himself. Truly, all of this feels like he’s observing someone else. It doesn’t feel real.  _ He  _ doesn’t feel real. 

 

He’s still alone in the room with his mother’s corpse, but he knows that won’t last long. Sooner or later, someone’s going to come take him away to God know’s where and his mother’s corpse will be disposed of and he’ll never see her again. Erik has trouble understanding the magnitude of it. ~~(~~ ~~Not to mention thinking… knowing that he’s never going to see his father again.~~ ) He should do something. Say something. Or… He doesn’t know. There’s no one here to witness these last moments, or to hear his words in his mother’s memory. If he says something, he’ll be shouting it out to the void, or to the God that Erik refuses to believe in. Because if He exists, he’s just as bad as these Nazis. 

 

But speaking to a cruel, probably nonexistent God feels better than just shouting to the void. He starts mumbling the Kaddish under his breath without thinking twice. It just comes naturally. Like there’s nothing else in the world he could say at this moment. Erik’s voice breaks as he recites it, but again, he’s hardly aware of the tears. Just as he finishes his prayer, a pair of soldiers comes in and drags him away. They don’t seem fazed by the bodies. Erik wonders how much death they’ve seen. Will he see that much death? Will he be added onto that toll that they’ve seen? Erik remembers hearing Isaac’s story every year at Rosh Hashanah. They’re supposed to think of Abraham in that story, to consider what a loyal servant of God he was willing to be, but at this moment, Erik can only think of Isaac and how he must have felt while bound upon that altar and waiting for the knife to drop. Erik reckons that right now, he feels a bit like Isaac did. Only, he doubts there’ll be any angels calling out for the Nazis to stop. 

 

The answer to whether he’ll die winds up being yes. Not physically. He’s not killed, he’s too valuable to Schmidt to be killed it seems. But as his clothes are stripped from him and his hair is sheared off, the pain hits him all at once, like slamming into a brick wall. The needle stings and burns as it tattoos numbers onto his forearm, but the pain of knowing that Erik Lehnsherr has died is greater. He’s not Erik Lehnsherr anymore. He’s just a set of numbers. 

 

While he’s led to his dormitory, he keeps reciting the Kaddish in his head, though he can no longer believe in a God. For who, he doesn’t know. For his parents? For Ruth? For himself? In truth, he’s probably doing it for this whole damn camp. 

  
  
  
  


**_David_ **

 

The next time Erik consults the Bible, he’s 17. He’s just kissed a boy for the first time. His name is Ezra and they go to school in Tel Aviv together. Ezra’s parents have been living in Israel since before the Shoah. There are no numbers tattooed onto his arm, his skin hasn’t been scarred by doctors poking and prodding at his skin in the name of science. Erik thinks he’s the most beautiful boy he’s ever seen, and they kiss one night, on a beach a short walk from Ezra’s home. It’s the middle of the night when they’re there, the whole beach dark and empty save for the two of them. 

 

He wants to say he hadn’t wanted it. Or that he’d hated it. Or that he’d shoved Ezra away, called him a queer, and socked him in the face for touching him. But Erik had done none of those things. He’d just kissed him and kissed him and kissed him and thought about all the girls he’d never been able to kiss because he couldn’t bring himself to do it. And then he stops thinking about that because all he’s thinking of is Ezra. They finally part when they run out of the cheap beer they’d made Ezra’s older brother buy them. Erik stumbles back to his foster home, with swollen lips and flushed for more reason than just the alcohol. He manages to get upstairs without waking his foster parents and he makes his way to the bathroom. 

 

Erik swallows. He grips the bathroom sink tight enough that his knuckles are white and though he tries to control it, he can feel the plumbing throughout the house threatening to warp under his stress. There’s a hickey peeking out just over the edge of his shirt’s collar, but Erik pointedly ignores it. In his reflection, he stares straight ahead, as if staring himself down will help him make sense of this whole situation. “Fuck,” he mumbles to himself, “I’m a goddamn fucking queer.”

 

In truth, it’s a thought that’s skirted around his head for years, probably since the first time he found out what those pink triangles on the camp uniforms meant. But it’s an easier thought to ignore when he’s not currently sporting a hickey left on him by another man. Erik doesn’t sleep well that night. 

 

In the morning, the first thing he does is grab his foster parent’s volumes of the Talmud and start scouring through anything that might be relevant. To his current situation. Whether he’s searching for something to justify his feelings or to scare him away from repeating his night with Ezra, he’s not sure. One way or another, he’s halfway through analyzing some rabbinic commentary on Leviticus when he hears the backdoor open. Ezra always wears a Magen David pendant around his wrist and Erik’s powers can feel it. It’s the only reason he doesn’t flinch when the other boy lets himself into the living room, brandishing a bottle of wine. 

 

“Erik.” Ezra grins, somehow every bit as bad boy as he is boy next door and Erik’s as charmed today as he was last night at the beach. “Are your parents home?” 

 

“My  _ foster  _ parents,” Erik amends, as he always does. Then he shakes his head. “Nah, they’re both at work.” 

 

“Perfect. I brought you some wine. Figured we’d crack it open?” He places it down on the table next to the volume of the Talmud. No doubt he sees what verses Erik’s searching through right now. 

 

“Hmm. Do you bring wine to all the boys you defile?” Erik asks, tugging him down so he’s sitting next to him on the couch. 

 

Ezra snorts. “Darling, I hardly call what we did last night defiling. What’s this, then?” He gestures towards the open pages. “Will Israel be soon blessed by the presence of the great Rabbi Erik Lehnsherr?” 

 

“Shove off. I’m looking stuff up.” Erik’s tempted to just close the volume, shove it away back onto the shelf, and pretend he’d never be bothered with it. But he’s always been stubborn. 

 

“Hmm.” He reaches for the bottle and pries it open. They’re a pair of seventeen year old boys, so of course, neither of them bothers with glasses. Ezra just grabs a swig straight from the bottle and passes it over to Erik. “Is ‘stuff’ code for what happened last night?” 

 

Erik looks down to where their knees are touching, hesitating for a moment. “Ezra, this is illegal in more way than one.” 

 

“I thought you didn’t believe in God, Erik.” 

 

“I don’t.” 

 

It’s an automatic response, from the many times he’s said as much before. As a boy, Erik had decided he could no longer believe in God and he’s been stubborn enough to hold to that as he gets older. But there’s a big difference between saying and doing. He can say all he wants how he doesn’t believe in God, but it doesn’t stop him from never failing to recite the Kaddish on the anniversary of his parents’ death, it doesn’t stop him from observing all the holidays, it doesn’t stop him from attending Shabbat services every week. And clearly, it’s not stopping him from worrying that what he and Ezra are doing is too big a sin to overlook. 

 

Whatever Erik says about believing or not in God, the answer is quite clear. 

 

“Sure.” Ezra stands and retrieves a copy of the Tanakh from the same shelf as the Talmud volumes. He finds the passage he’s looking for with practiced ease and places it on the table for Erik to read. “David and Jonathan were awfully close, don’t you think?” 

 

Ezra had probably come over in hopes of getting a bit tipsy and hooking up, but that plan goes down the drain. Erik’s too busy reading and rereading the passages and interpretations. He winds up spending all day on it. People see what they want to see while interpreting passages, but it’s easy for Erik to see how one might label David and Jonathan’s relationship as being a bit more than friends. And if David was a queer, then Erik supposes it’s probably okay if he is as well. Between the wine and the kissing Ezra keeps sneaking in while Erik tries to read, he starts to think that maybe Ezra could be like his Jonathan. Take away the whole dying part and he’d be quite happy with that. 

 

A year later, they graduate from secondary school. Ezra joins the IDF and Erik disappears to hunt down Nazis. So no, Ezra doesn’t end up being Erik’s Jonathan, but Erik still feels very much like the David in his life. 

  
  


\------

  
  


In 1962, Erik holds no qualms over being queer. He doesn’t spit the word out anymore, like he did the first night he used it for himself. He’s quite happy for it now, unfazed by how the rest of the world thinks of him. Good timing, too, because 1962 is the year Erik meets Charles Xavier. From the first moment in the sea, Erik is absolutely taken with him. Suspicious and frustrated with as well, of course, but undeniably falling for him. Lucky for Erik, Charles is as unapologetically queer as him. Erik beds him by the second stop of their road trip. Afterwards, Erik is enjoying the lazy cuddles with Charles resting his head on Erik’s chest. He’s not usually one for ‘snuggling’, but even he’s weak for bright eyed, floppy haired boys. Even ones who seem to never stop talking on and on. Erik had thought a good shag would quiet him some, but no, Charles just seems to never run out of things to say. 

 

Charles fingers toy at a Magen David charm that Erik wears around his neck. “It’s nice that you wear this. You’re very proud of all you are, Erik. If only everyone could be so lucky.” 

 

“I suppose there’s just something about being constantly kicked down that makes one want to stand up tall,” Erik says, with a tinge of bitterness to his voice. 

 

“I’m glad you learned to stand proud. Don’t ever let anyone try to bring you down.” Charles pats his chest as he leans up to give him a kiss. 

 

Erik is incredibly amused, but he kisses him back anyways. “Testing out a career as a motivational speaker, are you?”

 

“Depends.” He grins at him. “Was I good at it?” 

 

“Not in the slightest, love,” Erik says apologetically, petting Charles’ hair down. 

 

Charles sighs. “What a shame. Here I was hoping to tour the country to give inspiring speeches to young Jewish homosexuals.” 

 

“That’s ridiculously specific, Charles. You’re not going to find any customers that way. Even I think so, and I’m one of the nice Jewish boys you’re trying to appeal to.” It’s a supremely silly thing to be arguing about, but Erik can’t remember the last time he just let himself be foolish, and he finds himself enjoying it more than he should. 

 

“”Damn. Seems I can’t get any of this right.” Charles chuckles. He stops fiddling with the charm so he can reach down and hold Erik’s hand. “Are you religious or is that merely a way to display your heritage?” 

 

“I’m… observant,” Erik answers. It’s been clear for a long time that saying he doesn’t believe in God is not entirely true, but that doesn’t mean he’s any more comfortable with the words.

 

“Well, you’ll have to teach me some more about it all,” Charles decides. He finally quiets down and stops talking, but only because he distracts himself with kissing Erik. 

 

Rosh Hashanah will be coming up soon, and Erik can just imagine taking Charles along to it and celebrating with him. He thinks that Charles would be all for it, and would more than likely love all the singing and dancing. They can’t dance together or hold hands out in public, but Erik loves the thought of Charles tagging along anyway. He shouldn’t be so invested in Charles when they’ve only known each other for a week at most, but there’s something about Charles that makes him just not care about logic. Once again, his head is filled with the childish thoughts that maybe Charles will be his Jonathan. 

  
  


 

_**Cain** _

 

In Cuba, Erik realizes that he and Charles aren’t David and Jonathan. They’re Cain and Abel, and deep inside, Erik is horrified to see that he’s become Cain. The bullet doesn’t kill Charles, but when Erik leaves with his new ragtag group of mutants, he has a feeling he and Charles will be as good as dead to each other from here on out. It’s his fault, he supposes, for having ever wanted so badly to be a king when he’s always been little more than a murderer. 

  
  
  
  


_**Jonah** _

 

Erik’s been in many less than ideal situations in his life and each time, thought to himself that if he can get through it, anything else in the world would seem like a breeze. Of course, none of those situations had been being locked deep underground with zero human companionship or interaction to pass his days. Erik doesn’t want to say it’s worse than his childhood in the ghetto and camps, but it’s a whole different type of torture. The Nazis tried to break him first through his body, now the US government aims to break his mind and spirit and watch the rest crumbling down. 

 

The first few days, Erik reassures himself with the knowledge (hope, more accurately) that he’ll get busted out in no time and this will end up just being a few days of inconvenience and nothing more. But as days stretch into weeks and weeks stretch into months, Erik realizes that maybe there is no end to this. He assumes that allegedly assassinating a president would result in execution, and in a morbid way, he finds himself craving the day that will come. At least it will put an end to this endless nothing. But then months stretch into years and it becomes perfectly clear to Erik that death will not be coming any time soon. 

 

Ironically, or perhaps entirely too expected, it’s the first time in a long, long time that Erik has no problems professing his faith. He has no Torah with him - and when he requests one be brought to him, he gets laughed at more than when he asked that meals brought to him be at least kosher style - but he persists nonetheless. It’s what in his heart that matters more. Erik takes to counting whenever he goes to sleep, so he can observe the Shabbats. Truthfully, observing Shabbats is probably a bit of an understatement. The chances are slim that his counting actually aligns with the outside world. Not to mention that he has so little to do in this cell, that there’s not much of a difference between ‘observing’ and a normal day. But it’s nice to recognize it, and on those days, think a little more about the sermons he’d heard as a boy and the stories he remembers, even if memory may have warped them a bit. 

 

He thinks of Jonah often. No wonder he’d been so ready to do anything God asked, if being in that whale was anything like being held prisoner in the Pentagon. Erik would certainly go around making any promises it takes if it means getting out of here. Certainly, he does. Many nights he can’t sleep are filled with begging, promises that if he could just leave this place, he would be better. A better person, a better mutant, a better leader, a better Jew. Anything, if it means escaping this. And with the decade Erik spends in that hell, he has more than enough time to think up all sorts of promises. 

 

He doesn’t know if being broken out and promptly socked in the face by Charles is what he had in mind when he begged God to free him, but he’s certainly not going to complain. 

  
  
  


_**Moses** _

 

There’s a time in Erik’s life when all he dreams off is a mutant state. Somewhere for only their kind, where they can feel truly free to be who they are without fear of human intervention. Erik is, of course, heavily influenced by his adolescence in Israel when he pictures this, remembering fondly how it felt safe when nowhere else did. He just want the same for mutants everywhere. When he imagines it, he pictures someplace far away from humans, isolated or with the appropriate geographies to defend themselves adequately. Someplace exotic and beautiful and amenable to new life. He imagines it as their Promised Land that he can lead his people to so they can be safe and flourish without human oppression. It’s a bit lofty and self centered to picture himself as a sort of Moses for mutant kind, but Erik’s always been cocky as can be. Wanting to compare himself to the grandest figure of his faith? That’s right up Erik’s alley. 

 

However, every way Erik imagines it, there’s one possibility he never considers for this promised land: Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters in upstate New York of all places. It’s far from the exotic paradises Erik had imagined, but Erik’s lost too much to keep soldiering forward alone. Losing Magda and Nina should fill him with more of the rage that had fueled his previous outbursts, but he’s just tired. He’s tired of being alone or having everyone he loves and cares for ripped away from him. Charles is one of those he loves and cares for and it occurs to him in Egypt, perhaps a few decades too late, that the only person ripping him away from Charles is himself. He has a choice now, Erik knows. To go away again, back to his loneliness and anger, or to stay. Maybe staying means giving up his dreams of a far off mutant nation to call his own creation, but it also means keeping Charles and that’s enough of a reason for Erik. 

 

He doesn’t even know if Charles would still want him around after everything, but Erik will be damned if he doesn’t try. Rebuilding the school is almost finished, and it’s far along enough that everyone is living inside the mansion again, so going to Charles is as easy as going a bit further down the hallway and knocking on Charles’ door. Erik lets himself in once Charles has granted him permission, and spots him reading some papers he’s grading. But Charles puts them down as soon as he sees Erik at the doorway. 

 

“Erik! Come in, pull up a chair!” he encourages, already putting the student assignments down. 

 

Erik closes the door behind him and goes to sit across from Charles. He’s reminded of the many chess games they’d played back in ‘62. “I was hoping I could tear you away from your work for a while. Have a drink? Play a game? Like old days.” 

 

“Like old days,” Charles repeats, grinning as he wheels himself to his liquor cabinet and pulls out some brandy. While Erik sets up a board, Charles pours out two glasses for them. 

 

Erik graciously takes his glass and settles in his chair to begin their game. He’s never been very good at speaking when it comes to anything even remotely sentimental. So instead of being upfront about telling Charles that he wants to stay, he just remarks, “There’s a reconstructionist congregation not too far a drive from here. I might go check them out on Friday evening. Perhaps it’ll be a nice place to attend regularly.” 

 

“Will you? I hope you like it well enough to want to stay forever, Erik,” he says. 

 

“Forever?” Erik laughs. “That’s a rather long time.” 

 

Charles nods. “I’d have you around forever and even longer if I could. You know, the children are in need of a foreign language instructor. Perhaps I can convince you to undertake that endeavor as well?” 

 

“Spending my days trapped in a classroom with moody teenagers? Perhaps, but it’ll cost you a favor,” he warns. 

 

“Oh?” Charles asks. “And what sort of favor would that be?” 

 

“All the way back in 1962, I wanted to take you to a Rosh Hashanah service one day. Clearly, I didn’t. But I’d be very happy if you let me do so when the time comes this year.” Erik sips at his brandy after getting the words out, mostly to hide how nervous making the request makes him. There’s something about Charles that never fails to bring the foolish nerves out in him.

 

Charles grins and nods enthusiastically. “I’d be honored if you brought me along, Erik. Thank you very much, old friend. I look forward to it. I’m very glad to have you stay. I only wish it could have happened a long time ago.” 

 

“Well… Things change, I suppose. And people do as well,” he admits. 

 

“And you did?” Charles asks. 

 

Erik just shrugs. “Or at least my outlook did. I still hold my opinions and that won’t ever change. But I spent my time before fighting battles while trying to find a space for our people, when you’d carved one out here all on your own. It’s not everything I ever dreamed off, but it’s as close to a promised land as our people have so far and I figure I’m better off helping it than working against it.” 

 

“Well, I’m glad that even if we’re not everything you dreamed of, we still manage to be good enough,” Charles says. It could sound bitter, and coming from Erik it probably would have. But it’s Charles, and instead, it’s just the nonchalant humor the man always seems to carry with him. 

 

“Of course. And good enough will have to do. It doesn’t hurt that you’re here as well.” 

 

Their game becomes mostly a distraction for their hands as they sip brandy and talk on and on. There’s plenty of time to catch up on between them two. Not just serious, heavy topics, but also just time to spend doing little else than enjoy each other’s company with some lighthearted chatter. When they’ve finished a second glass of brandy, Erik puts away the chessboard once more and stands up to leave. 

 

“I suppose I’ll head to bed now. See you in the morning, Charles?” he suggests. 

 

Charles hesitates for a moment, a rare thing with him, before gesturing to his bed. “Why don’t you stay the night? Really make it like the old days?” 

 

Life in the X-Mansion isn’t everything Erik ever wanted, nor is it where he expected to be in life, but he’s sure it’s right where God intended him to be because it has Charles. And in many ways, Charles is much better than anything Erik could have envisioned. 

**Author's Note:**

> this was great to write, even though it could get a bit heavy at some (rather obvious) points. but I enjoyed writing it even then. this all started when I thought of little Erik reciting a Kaddish for his parents and then sort of morphed and grew into this.  
> I'm always very happy when I get to write anything related to Erik and his faith and Jewish life <3 
> 
>  
> 
> for questions, prompts, or chatting I can be found on tumblr at [sebbym17](http://sebbym17.tumblr.com/)


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